In the September One Thread, I mentioned DH telling DD about how we met and how she came into this world and I thought it would be fun to hear about everyone else's stories of how they met and how their children came to be. I'll go first!

December 2005: I see him behind my mom's truck in traffic, as my sister points him out as a co-worker at the local IHOP and they are waving back and forth. I look back and I get this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. Almost like butterflies, but something intuitive was telling me "that man will change your life forever". Little did I know..... lol

Fast forward to February 2006 and I am wanting a part time, after school job to pay for my cell phone bill. I'm 16, so I'm approved to work 30 hours a week if I wished. I got a job at the same IHOP as him on February 11th. I had no visual attraction to him at all when I met him. I thought he was really funny and smart and outgoing. Two weeks after I started working there, I start to feel attracted to him and we exchange flirts here and there and then one night, in early March I told him that I liked him. I think he thought I was joking, because nothing else was said about it until March 10th, and I went up to him and said you know I was serious the other night when I said I really liked you. He looked really surprised and said he liked me too. It was shortly before our shift were over, so I continued doing my cleanup duties. The next day, was really flirty and that night, when I was cleaning the men's bathroom, he came in there and told me jokingly I needed to get out so he could go to the bathroom. After saying he was joking, I blocked the door and he said I need to finish my work. I said "but what if I do this?" And kissed him lightly. After that, it was at least a 5 minute makeout session. It was total bliss! Fireworks, butterflies.....Kissing him was heaven.

Since I was still a minor, and he was 10 years my senior, we knew our relationship would be forbidden. So, the next night, we planned to have him pick me up at the end of the driveway at my mom's house at midnight, when everyone would be asleep. We ended up having sex that night, and little did we know at the time, that night would change our lives forever. I was on birth control and we trusted in each other that neither of us had an STD, so we didn't bother with a condom. I ended up pregnant by March 13th. The strange thing is, we made our relationship exclusive that night, and even pondered on children if we ended up being together that long. We mostly talked about how we'd love to have a girl if we have kids and he said he always wanted a girl named Casey, and I wanted Mercedes. It was mutual that if we ever had children and happened to have a girl that she would be named Casey Mercedes.

A few weeks down the road, we were falling head over heels in love and were inseperable at work and wrote letters to each other(I still have those letters!). My sister and her now husband saw this and started asking questions and even warned my DH to leave me alone. ALOT of stuff happened that we thought would prevent us being together. Things having to do with drugs, and DH possibly going to jail if he didn't stop seeing me. It still, oddly enough, didn't stop us. I never found out I was pregnant until I was 10 weeks pregnant, around May 20th.

DH and I were both happy and scared of what the future held. He needed to talk to my mom to get her blessing to see me and this didn't happen until late August. She finally agreed, but told him that she still didn't like him and probably would never. I had our son after 19 hours of labor at 2:30AM on December 16th, 2006, and we both fell in love all over again.

Afterwards, we moved in together and when DS was 5 months old, we fell into addiction hard until he was 18 months, when I decided to get help and split from DH in order to stay clean. It took a month for him to want help and entered treatment in August 2008. We had a small wedding ceremony September 6th, but never got married legally.

.... Later that month, I found out I was pregnant (on birth control again) and lost the baby in late October, but we both stayed clean through it and even though the pregnancy was a surprise, we got used to the idea and wanted the baby.

Needless to say, we purposely got pregnant with the baby that would be Casey, on New Years Eve. We moved away after DH got a promotion in another town. When it came time to have Casey, we were very happy to be finally meeting the girl we'd dreamed of since day 1. When she was born the first thing me and DH said was "She has red hair!" Just like daddy. lol Again, we fell in love all over!

Over the next year, we lost communication and grew apart. I left him for a time with Casey in January for another man, who made things seem like he was alot better for me. Ha! How wrong I was..... On birth control, I got pregnant after only 3 weeks with this guy. After alot of severe emotional abuse, I asked Billy if I could stay at his house til I could figure out what I needed to do. We had no intention of getting back together, because of al that we'd put each other through, over the time I was away. A week after I came to stay, we were talking about where things went wrong and we both started crying and holding each other.

I looked up at him and asked for a kiss and it was our first kiss all over again. It was all over from then on. And we are doing even better than when we first got together, even though I'm carrying someone else's child. I have massive respect for him for that. I couldn't ask for a better person to share my life with, even though we've had many ups and downs and close calls. I love him and we want to "re-tie" the knot and do it legally this time. lol

Sorry this was SOOOO long. lol I couldn't stop writing once I got past how we met and came to be together.

DH and I were both juniors in college when we met. Before we officially met, we were at a meeting (of over 600 people, but he was in leadership so he recognized most faces) and had a "love at first sight" moment. He saw me in the lobby before the meeting started and didn't recognize me, so he thought to himself "I have got to meet that beautiful girl" (his opinion, of course. It makes me blush, lol) Anyway, he employed the help of a few friends, described what I was wearing, and told them they had to look around during the meeting and find me.

They didn't have any luck... but.... at the end of the meeting I saw him and thought to myself "Wow, he looks like a really interesting guy"- I was attracted but I wasn't sure why, there was just something about him He saw me as well and I remember locking eyes, but I didn't know his name. His friends now tell me that after that meeting he was obsessed with finding out who I was, and even told his friend (a girl) that he was "going to marry the girl in the vest" (It was January and I was wearing a fuzzy vest)

A week later he was organizing a fundraising meeting for something, so he sent out an organization-wide email and I responded that I wanted more information. We emailed back and forth about details, and still had no idea we were talking to the person whom we had both been interested in. He did facebook me, though, based on my name, and then he started putting 2 and 2 together. I remember sitting there showing my sister photos of him from his facebook and saying "isn't this guy so cute?!" We started IM'ing online after classes, and I could tell that I really liked him but was unsure if he was just being friendly... A few things lead me to think maybe he was gay (ok, I have to explain. On Valentine's day he called the florist and arranged the flowers over the phone because he's really picky about how it looks. He also has a box full of really nice stationery that he writes letters on. He's really picky about his hairdresser, and is generally just really metrosexual. Besides all those things, he was sort-of, kind-of flirty but never made a move, so it felt very much like just a really sweet gay friend that compliments you but isn't interested, you know?) Anyway, about a month after we started talking it was my bday. After a few drinks, I got super flirty and he didn't really resist. I was feeling like maybe he wasn't gay after all (HAHA) and the next night he kissed me.

We dated for 4 months before we started talking about marriage (this was going into our senior year of college). We obviously weren't ready to get engaged yet- we were in school, no money, etc. It was an amazing relationship- we were so head over heels, it was like a fairy tale. He secretly started planning on buying a ring, and finally proposed a few weeks before graduation. We had a short (6 month) engagement and were married in the fall of 2007. (4 years next month!) We didn't live together until we were married, so it was a little bit of an adjustment but I wouldn't change that for anything. We did NFP and got pregnant the following June. We were a little bit nervous and surprised. We quickly adjusted to the idea, and here we are with a 2.5 year old and a baby on the way I love how we've grown together and adjusted to all the things life has brought our way (cross country move, babies, etc.) He's a great daddy and a wonderful husband, and I am so thankful for our son- well, sons :) All my boys bring me so much joy.

hahaha That is so funny! You thought he was gay. lol There were a few people when DH worked at IHOP that thought he might be gay, and since my DH and my sister have the same first name there was confusion over who was actually dating her boyfriend at the time. LOL Someone said "Drew is dating Billee" and the other person thought they meant Billy, my DH. lol

I was 19 and just out of a 3 year relationship. It was an intense relationship as he had some serious drug and mental stuff going on and I was his stability, his 'rock'. I decided enough was enough and I couldn't, at 19, choose to be in this role the rest of my life.

At the time, my parents had sold my childhood house and we all moved about an hour away. I didn't know anyone and was working and going to school, so I didn't have time to meet people - and I'm not the type to go to a club or bar or anything, I'm WAY too shy.

So, I decided to make a Match profile. They offered a profile for free, and if you wanted to contact anyone you had to pay for the service. So I made my profile (in which I laid it all out there - I said I wasn't into playing dating games and I wanted to get married) and within a few days had several guys sending me messages (I used to be thin and pretty ), one of which was DH. So, I signed up and sent replies to the ones I liked.

The first guy who came over was cute and fun, but I just didn't feel it. We watched a movie and about half way through I was so bored and just wanted it to be over with. I turned to him and said, "Okay, you can go now." I kid you not! I mustered up the nerve out of sheer boredom!

The second guy I was just talking to on the phone. He was a dentist and very successful (RICH), but I knew I'd end up having to live up to 'trophy wife' with him, and I just couldn't see myself happy doing that.

But, DH had my fully attention. We talked on the phone (and yahoo messenger!!) for about a week before we met. My family was having a BBQ at our house, so I invited him. Poor guy had to meet my parents and me and my cousins and our friends and neighbors... all on the first date!

But we totally hit it off! I never felt like I wanted him to leave. We played XBOX and chatted away. It's funny how perfect our first date was and how it has really mirrored our lives... we're very family oriented and DH now works at Microsoft on XBOX stuff

And, I found I liked DH so much I canceled my Match profile - and it was within their cancellation window and I was refunded my money

That was in the summer of 2005. We broke up for a brief time the following summer, but got back together and have been on cloud nine every since. We got married on 8/8/08.

And, he's my absolute soul mate. The male version of me. He is my heart. I'm not sure that there are any two people in the world who love each other as we do
Though, I could be bias

The first time I met my husband was at the auto parts store where he was working at the time. I had just turned 16 and he was 20 and I really didn't pay much attention to him. My friend had gone in there to flirt with my now-DH to make her ex jealous. It was dumb, I was over it and didn't really look at him.

About a year later, I started dating a guy who was in the same circle of friends as my now-DH. We became friends after I split from the other boy. We had a close mutual friend and ended up spending most of our time together on the weekends. It was a few months before we decided to start dating. I was 17 and he was 21. He was very sweet about it and said we couldn't be together unless it was okay with my parents. He'd dated a girl my age several months earlier, her parents were never okay with it and he didn't want to go through that again. So, I had to get my parents' blessing and he came over and did the whole "meet the parents" thing, which I thought was very sweet of him. He has been very close with my family from the very beginning because of this. My parents let me date him, but were worried because he was older than me. They thought if they gave their blessing I would just "get it out of my system" and move on. Little did they know!

It only took a few months for us to fall in love, completely. Marriage never was a question, we always spoke about when we were married and what our life would be like, making plans. It seemed like it was just a given. He proposed to me on Christmas the next year, just days before my 18th birthday. We got married on 6/25/05, when I was 19. We had a bit of a rough patch right after we got married. I had a "Woah!" moment when I realized what we had just done and questioned whether or not it was the right thing. I was young, I was in college, all our friends were single. I felt like I had sacrificed a lot and hadn't thought about it enough... I just went with the way I felt instead of thinking. We went to counseling for a little while and I realized I had sacrificed a lot by getting married so young, but I didn't want to be without him. Things got a lot better as the first few years went by. Time is really what we needed. We had our daughter just before our 4 year anniversary. I really feel like that was the perfect amount of time for us. We got into a solid place in our marriage before starting our family.

Mallory. Happily married to Joe since 6/25/05. Loving my adventure with my girls, Owyn Samantha, born 3/1/09. and Greta June, born 11/2/11

I've known my DH since I was 13. He was 39 when I met him!! We are a few years apart as you can see..... Ha Ha! Obviously we have not been dating that long! He was my dads student, my dad teaches at the college here in town. After he graduated I didnt see him for awhile, but after I did see him again, circumstances kinda pushed us together, and we started hanging out. And eventually we started to like eachother and we started dating, and after not too long we were completely head over heels, obsessed, in love with eachother!

I ended up with no place to live, so I moved in with him after we had been dating about a year, my parents hated him of course just because of his age, but I loved him so we just kept on doing our thing. After we had been together a few years we thought it would be such a cool thing, an ultimate expression of our love for eachother, to have a baby together. We had always heard stories of how difficult it was for a couple to get pregnant, so we decided that I would stop taking birth control and we'd just see what happened. I had one period off the pill, and no more...... Pregnant!! Lol, we did not expect that I would be pregnant that soon, but we were so excited, and by the time I was in my 3rd trimester, my family had accepted him and the fact that we were together and we have been a happy little family ever since :D

And on March 1 I found out I was pregnant again, after not taking my pills and after we had talked about having another because it would be "so cool" lol.

I always tell people that my husband and I got together via a cease and desist letter from Fox.

We were both teenagers at the time. He was living in New Jersey, and wanting to program a computer game based on the TV show Dark Angel with his best friend. They needed someone to write them a script. So they hit the net...and they found me. I agreed to do it. And then, a few days later, we all got a nasty gram in our email inboxes from Fox threatening legal action if we didn't stop working on it.

We had to drop the project. But we remained friends. Chatting online. After about a year, he flew out to Montana where I was living at the time to visit. We hit it off. Super-long distance dated for the four years that I was off at college, seeing each other only for a few weeks here and there during the summer. And then, one day, he just packed up his truck in Jersey, hit the road, and showed up in Montana...ready to live there. I finished up school. And we got an apartment together.

Eventually we bought a house. Got married. Sold the house. And moved to California when he got a too-good-to-pass-up job offer. And now...some ten years after we met, we're finally expecting baby number one!

We're absurdly slow movers at this whole relationship thing. Dated for 6 years before we got engaged. Took us another year and a half to actually get married. And we were married for two and a half before we started TTC.

I've known my DH since I was 13. He was 39 when I met him!! We are a few years apart as you can see..... Ha Ha! Obviously we have not been dating that long! He was my dads student, my dad teaches at the college here in town. After he graduated I didnt see him for awhile, but after I did see him again, circumstances kinda pushed us together, and we started hanging out. And eventually we started to like eachother and we started dating, and after not too long we were completely head over heels, obsessed, in love with eachother!

I ended up with no place to live, so I moved in with him after we had been dating about a year, my parents hated him of course just because of his age, but I loved him so we just kept on doing our thing. After we had been together a few years we thought it would be such a cool thing, an ultimate expression of our love for eachother, to have a baby together. We had always heard stories of how difficult it was for a couple to get pregnant, so we decided that I would stop taking birth control and we'd just see what happened. I had one period off the pill, and no more...... Pregnant!! Lol, we did not expect that I would be pregnant that soon, but we were so excited, and by the time I was in my 3rd trimester, my family had accepted him and the fact that we were together and we have been a happy little family ever since :D

And on March 1 I found out I was pregnant again, after not taking my pills and after we had talked about having another because it would be "so cool" lol.

Oh goodie! Mine and DH's age gap isn't the biggest on this forum. LOL It was the same thing with my DH. A few weeks before I delivered it seemed mom just threw up her hands and said to hell with it! and accepted DH. I got a surprise when I had left DH for a little while this year when she took him under her wing.

I was studying in London, where I planned to finish my bachelor's degree. I was almost 22 when a classmate and I started looking for a flat to share. We found a great place, but the friend bailed out on me at the last minute, and I had to find a flatmate fast. I had already given my notice for the room I was renting.

I posted on a website for people looking for flatmates. I met up with one person who was not a good fit, then I saw DH's ad, which was really cute and funny. He had just arrived from Canada on a working holiday visa (I found out later that he'd been laid off from the company he had worked for for 5 years and didn't really know what to do next). We met to go look at the place I had found, and I immediately felt this connection with him. He had no bravado or smoothness about him. He was totally genuine and nice and kind of dorky, like me. He loved it, and we planned to rent it together. We spent the next week meeting up, talking, taking long walks, and buying kettles and tea towels and things.

He made his move on the day we moved in. It surprised me, as I had convinced myself that he was not interested and it wouldn't be a good idea anyway. We never ended up using the second bedroom.

Only 2 months after we met, I started thinking about the future and realized that if we wanted to consider staying together, we needed to make arrangements so that could happen. He was only allowed to stay in the UK for a year, and I had 2 years of college left. So we agreed that I would apply to transfer to universities in Canada. I assured him that if it didn't work out, it would still be an adventure for me.

We stayed in London for the next 6 months. We saved up and traveled together in Ireland, Scotland, and France that summer. Then I moved back to Toronto with him in August (we actually went back to California for a visit first so he could meet my parents). We got engaged a month later and married the following October. DS was a happy surprise 6 months later, and I was 4 months pregnant when I graduated from University of Toronto. Now, 6 years and 2 more moves later, we are expecting DS's little sister. We will celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary in a few weeks. :)

We actually met online but in a chat room which I find so embarrassing no one really knows the true story of how we met! Apparently DH was a big deal in this chat room, very popular. It was my first time in that particular room although I'd been going into chat rooms for 10 months.

It was MSN's chat room and they had something where you could "whisper" someone. Every other guy that whispered me wanted to know my a/s/l (age, sex, location) and then after that would ask eye color, hair color, weight, bra size, you name it. EWWW. DH never asked that. We started chatting and I felt like I liked him already but of course I didn't really know him. A few days later we talked for EIGHT hours online. How crazy. I was too nervous to meet him then (it was early May) but by late June I felt like I had to meet him. He never flirted with me, we truly were just friends, but I really liked him. We had some of the best conversations of my life. We met in late June.

I was actually dating another guy at the time but it wasn't serious and DH & I weren't out on a date, just to meet. It was totally platonic. Then July 4 the guy I was dating was supposed to go to the beach with me but just disappeared. He did not answer his phone or reply to his email. I was so mad at him. DH invited me out to a club with his friends that night and that is when we had our first kiss which led into a full-blown make-out session.

I couldn't believe I kissed a guy while dating another one. DH started letting me know how much he liked me (I was shocked) and pressuring me to dump the other guy. I was too infatuated with him though and as soon as I heard from him again I was back with him. DH repeatedly asked me out that whole summer and I did not want to go. I was so mixed up.

It got to the point where he stopped talking to me. He wanted me to go out with him and I had liked just being friends. I really missed him though. He wouldn't talk to me at all. One day I wrote to him online and said, "Please just say something even if it's 'I never want to talk to you again.'" He finally started talking and we agreed to get together and go watch a movie. That was in November.

By February I had decided to get my own apartment and was going to be moving farther away from DH but closer to my job. We lived int he same city but in opposite "corners" (me in NE, he in SW). Then I was moving to the 'burbs, even farther.

By April I had real deep feelings for him. I had finally dumped the other guy for good in the fall or winter (can't even remember now!) and dated a few other guys in the meanwhile and all I could think about was DH! The problem was since I didn't want him when he wanted me, I didn't know how to bring it up and I guess he had gotten burned by me so stopped even talking that way. I started hinting around in April that I liked him again and on May 1 he asked me out. I was still a virgin at the time and had been planning to save myself for marriage and by the end of May we had slept together. I knew I was going to marry him at that point and I did not plan on sleeping with him and it wasn't anything we discussed doing, it just happened. He did not take advantage of me, we totally did not plan it, it was my doing just as much as his. The next day I felt such guilt over sleeping with him I couldn't even look at him.

We eventually worked our way through it and had a great summer. It rained on all our dates but we had so much fun (outdoor concert where I fell in the mud, the beach, NYC - some of my favorite pictures of me he took after we got caught in the rain and I'm dripping but so happy, etc., etc.). Within a year of my moving away from the city, DH followed and got his apartment about 10 minutes from mine. (I grew up in a very religious community and for the same reasons I felt guilty about sleeping together I knew we couldn't live together before marriage. My mom made sure to keep telling me that. LOL) I seriously knew I was going to marry him then but I guess he didn't know. It took him quite a few years to propose and then we didn't get married right away. He is a bit slow-moving but I think I was his one true love. We continued sleeping together and learned to quite enjoy myself and the guilt was lessened eventually. It's hard to feel guilty when you're in love and it feels so right.

I already knew I was going to struggle with getting pregnant since I have PCOS and rarely ovulate and it took him awhile to say we could stop using protection (even though I was aching for a baby). In May 2010 we decided to start TTC with the goal of trying for a year before getting help. By December I was in tears because I had only ovulated once or twice during that time and our friends were dropping their BFP announcements left & right. He told me we could go back to the RE (where I had been diagnosed) earlier than planned and on New Year's Day I started my meds. The first cycle did not work but the second one did and now we are expecting that baby!

My DH and I met online too :) In a Christian Chatroom over 9 years ago. I am from South Africa, and he is from Canada. We chatted for a while, and went from friends, to knowing we wanted to spend our lives together. He was sooo sweet and we started a long distance relationship... chatted on MSN, spoke on the phone, wrote daily emails and sent packages for 4 years :) I finally was able to fly out to Canada and we met face to face on June 12th 2006 :) we got engaged on July 22nd 2006, and married October 1st, 2006 :) Life has been a whirlwind. He is truly my soulmate. I never knew what it would feel like to be so loved and cherished, until we finally were married and living together In October we will be married 5 years, I can't believe how fast time has gone by, the time together has finally surpassed the time we spent seperated, living in different parts of the world. I had to file immigration paperwork and we had to wait for 6 months before I knew if I was able to stay. It cost us a fortune! But soooo worth it!

*so there you have it... the super condensed version of our love story and yes, we are living happily ever after with a little blessing on the way, due in the middle of November...

My DH and I also met on Match.com, only he was about the 200th date that I'd gone on! I was so burned out on dating that he was literally the last date that I was going to go on. We hardly talked before we met (maybe 10 minutes online), but once he showed up I pretty much knew right away. He happened to only live a few blocks away, so dating was very convenient! My DS was only 3 at the time, so we took it slow and I made sure he was the right guy for us. (My DS's father has never been involved and my dh has now adopted him)

We dated for 2 years before we got married in 2008. We didn't live together before marriage, which worked out well for us. I didn't want to expose my son to that kind of situation if I wasn't 100% sure that it was long term. We got pregnant (on purpose) with our DD just before our wedding. We've now been married for 2.5 years with DD2 on the way! :)

Abra, Married to George, Mother to DS 12/03 & DD1 08/09 & DD2 12/11 + Someone New in May 2015! After years of planning, we are finally living our dream in South America!!

I'm enjoying everyone's stories! I wish mine was cute and sweet... it is to me, but it's also a bit Jerry Springer and I am decidedly *not* Jerry Springer! I'm typically pretty prudish and a bit too into manners. Let's just say it involved a hotel bar and leave it at that! It was completely supposed to be a fun, crazy, one time "what the heck, I just turned 30" thing. Instead, I met the most wonderful man in the world. Not really a story for the grandkids, though....

I will say that dp and I knew we were meant to be together within the first month. We were already making plans for the future.

Wow, all your stories are so unique! Ours is pretty standard - we met in college when we were 20 when we were placed in the same dorm. Became friends, started dating, broke up, got back to together (repeat 2 or 3 times), moved in together when I moved for graduate school, spent a summer apart during graduate school while I worked in Asia, immediately got engaged when I returned because we missed each other like crazy and knew we didn't want to spend any more time apart, then got married. We've been married 10 years and are on kid #4. Of course there's a lot more to it than that, but those are the basics!

DH and I met in college on our second day. We were both transfers in our junior year and transfers had a mandatory community service we had to do. City buses came and picked us all up (over 1000) and we happened to sit on the same bus next to each other. He tried to talk to me and I avoided him. Mostly because I didn't want a relationship. I started a new school away to get my focus on my life the way I thought it should be and a relationship was not included in that. A week or so later he spotted my roommate and I in the cafeteria and we had two extra seats so he and a friend joined us. I got talking about how I wanted to go on a run after dinner and my roommate bailed. He offered to go. It was really a forced thing. He went through all of that work to get to do something with me and then on our run, lied and told me he had a girlfriend who was his best friend before they started dating and talked about how great their relationship was. I was happy, of course, because I was not looking for a relationship! So we did things as friends until he finally told me several weeks later that they really weren't together and we talked a lot about how he wasn't into dating just to date. He only dated if he saw a future with someone. He said the next girl he kissed was going to be the girl he married. We took nights and sat at the lake and talked or did homework, he came "home" with me during a hurricane. It was just a great friendship. I started to develop feeling for him but I didn't want to tell him because I didn't want to ruin it and make things weird.

In November, we went to the lake that we called "gator lake" because I got some bad news from my family. We got hot chocolate and sat there and talked. He gave me a hug and told me he was sorry that all of this stuff was going on and that he wanted to make it better. Then he kissed me! It was November 9th 2004. During our time dating, it was wonderful. Busy but wonderful. We fought a lot about the ex-grilfriend and his mother's dislike for me but other than that, when it was just he and I, it was bliss! He graduated May 2006 and moved back home (NC) where I decided I would move too. I rented a house near him and July 21, 2006 he proposed at the beach under un-planned fireworks. We were married October 21, 2006. I always told him I only needed 3 months to plan a wedding and he planned it that way. No long engagement for us!

I had a substitute teacher job but he just worked odd and end jobs while seeking employment. Every single place he applied he was either over qualified or under qualified. We had a substantial savings that we lives meagerly on. On Feb. 10th 2007, we found out we were pregnant and on Feb 12th he got a call for a recruiter who found his resume online and had an interview lined up for him that Wednesday. He got that job and was hired that Friday with full benefits taking pre-existing pregnancy. We thought we weren't going to need medical since we were having a home birth but it ended up we transferred to the hospital and needed those benefits. We had our beautiful little boy, Jayden, on October 24th 2007, 3 days post our 1 year anniversary! We got pregnant in Feb 2009 again and my DH ended up getting a new job with a significant pay increase while I was pregnant with him. Our second amazing blessing from Heaven was born November 6, 2009. He was due on DS#1's birthday but chose his very own method of entrance into the world and day! We found out March 2011 we were pregnant with baby #3 and just three weeks ago, my husband receive a 60% pay increase and promotion at work. This baby is due November 26th 2011!

We are beyond blessed! I look at different situations and think that if God didn't want us together, we wouldn't be! And I see how our needs have always been met in perfect timing. I can't argue with that! I just testify to the Glory and keep on going! It's important to me to note that none of these things just happened. I know that emphatically. And I marvel in it! I am excited to meet our new little guy and wonder what else is in store for us as we go forth on this life journey! I love DH more today than ever before and hope I can continue to say that each day until I die!

I'm enjoying everyone's stories! I wish mine was cute and sweet... it is to me, but it's also a bit Jerry Springer and I am decidedly *not* Jerry Springer! I'm typically pretty prudish and a bit too into manners. Let's just say it involved a hotel bar and leave it at that! It was completely supposed to be a fun, crazy, one time "what the heck, I just turned 30" thing. Instead, I met the most wonderful man in the world. Not really a story for the grandkids, though....

I will say that dp and I knew we were meant to be together within the first month. We were already making plans for the future.

I was told once that mine and DH's relationship was Jerry Springer-like. The person that said it was a complete jerk, though, so I didn't take it into account. lol I think it's kinda cute that you guys found each other on a whim and you ended up together.

Goodness, Becky! *I* can say my story is Jerry Springer-ish, but if someone else did, I'd have to kick some butt! Which I hope you did! lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by IwannaBanRN

I was told once that mine and DH's relationship was Jerry Springer-like. The person that said it was a complete jerk, though, so I didn't take it into account. lol I think it's kinda cute that you guys found each other on a whim and you ended up together.

Edward and I must have crossed paths in elementary school because we were both in the band program, and the GATE (gifted and talented education) program, although I was homeschooled and he wasn't.

We were both in the same band in 7th and 8th grade but never really talked or anything. My parents knew his dad a little because he was the director of the local library and because his dad was on the school board and my mom was the one who got the homeschool program pushed through the school board. Edward and I never really crossed paths until he asked for volunteers to learn tuba to replace him in eighth grade. I said "well, I can't replace you because I'm in 8th too, but I wanna learn tuba" So he started teaching me after school once a week. My best friend and I were both religious, and we decided to make him our "project." It sounds terrible, but really I noticed that he seemed to be really hurting, really adrift in life and I felt like I had something that would help.

We both went to the high school and we both enrolled in the drama program. I had like a mental breakdown and dropped out of high school and went to the community college, but I liked theater, so I just pretended I was still a student and kept going. The theater teacher just assumed I had permission to audit the class... : ) Edward really got on my nerves a lot, but we started to get to know each other better. In sophomore year we did The Sound of Music and everyone in the cast became pretty close friends. He started flirting, but I was kind of a dunce. Before the end of school a mutual friend noticed this and thought that I liked him too, and played go between. We each whispered that we liked the other she started squealing and hopping up and down. So high school, I know.

We didn't see each other a whole lot over the summer, but we talked on the phone a lot, and chatted on AIM even more. On August 11th we started officially dating (established online lol). On my 16th birthday (Sept. 16th) we kissed for the first time. We dated all through high school under the condition that he would learn about my religion because it was important to me and he obliged. After high school I went to school in Utah, and he went to school in Oregon. We talked on the phone all the time, but I was starting to think it wasn't really going anywhere, and maybe it was time for me to move on. He called on my birthday and told me he had been thinking for the last few years and decided he wanted to join my church. Sooooooo, of course I didn't call things off. : )

We dated long distance for the next year, and then that summer after school ended he moved to Utah to be close to me. I decided to do a semester abroad, and I decided that I wanted to be engaged while I was across the country, so he proposed. We both moved home with our parents for the end of summer and I started planning the wedding. We were either going to get married in January when I got back in the country during winter break, or after the semester in may. I was tired of the long distance thing, so we picked January. I went to Romania and planned the wedding long distance and about drove my mother batty.

We got married, his sister disowned him because she hated me, and his parents were ticked because we were so young and not done with college. We moved out to Portland and he kept going to school, and I finished my last semester online. Edward had really struggled in college, including fighting mono and he was just falling farther and farther behind. His family thought it was my fault (still thinks so), but they didn't know he flunked a bunch of classes the first semester and hadn't dropped out because I was pushing him not to. We had previously planned for him to graduate, and then we'd move back to our hometown and start a family, but it seemed like it was looming farther and farther into the future so I said "let's have a baby" and we did. We weren't really planning to have a second so soon, but we weren't really not trying to have another, so I was pregnant the second time when Libby was only 11 months old. Edward had already lost his scholarship at school and all his family thought he quit cause we were having kids. His sister started coming around again to see Libby and they healed their relationship. Edward wanted to keep living in Oregon, so I decided we were going to buy a house.

I was really super emotionally needy during Julianna's pregnancy/postpartum, he was incredibly sleep deprived and depressed and I came super close to leaving, but I didn't because ultimately Libby was a Daddy's girl, and how could I do that to them? He got a better job, I did a lot of reading on relationships and being emotionally self-sufficient and worked out a lot of my own issues. Now I can't even imagine life without him. I love him like I love sunshine. Sure I could live without it, but why would I want to?

And now we are having a third baby. : ) I'm not quite as needy, he's not quite as depressed, and his family doesn't hate me quite as much. I have great hopes for the future. : )

So we tell everyone we met playing the tuba, even though it was several years before we even liked each other as friends.

ETA: It also seems like so much of our relationship was "long-distance" even when we were living in the same town, but always on the phone or computer. Even now I chat online with him throughout his work day.....

I love Edward and we love our Libby (8/07) and 'Nana' (05/09 ) and Eowyn (11/11) We are having a blast and .

Dh and I met through music. We were both in the Wind Symphony at our university. I played the french horn, he played the trombone. He actually sat right behind me. I was also good friends with the music librarian, which is where he had a work-study job. I would hang out in the music library so I got to know him a bit that way, too. I was a year ahead of him (1.5 years older) and he seemed really young to me. He also seemed gay to me as he had frosted hair, two earrings, and tended to wear sweater vests. Turns out his roommate was in fact gay, but not him. As the year went on, our social circles melded a bit and we got to know each other better. I thought of him as a friend and he wanted more. There was even a point at which he asked me to do a Tarot card reading for him (this was something I dabbled in a bit for friends). His question was whether he should ask me out or not (though he did not reveal his question to me). The reading gave him a resounding NO and he always wondered if I made it up. But I hadn't. I wouldn't have been ready to take that step then if he had asked and it could have ruined our friendship. So he continued to find ways to hang out with me and I continued to let him. There was just something about him that intrigued me, but also something that held me back. Just before my birthday, toward the end of the school year, he asked me out. I told him I had to think about it. Then we had one of those epic, all night conversations where I basically asked him to convince me why I should date him. I had dated in the past, but not much. I was really inexperienced and agreeing to really be in a relationship with someone felt like a huge step. Especially someone I wasn't totally convinced I was interested in romantically. But I decided to go for it, figuring now was the time in my life to try things.

He was really a wonderful boyfriend. Very sweet, romantic, caring. He was fine taking things slow and waited several more weeks to kiss me. My roommate had to actually intervene a bit and ask him why he hadn't kissed me yet. That was embarrassing and humorous. We had a wonderful summer together where we ended up saying "I love you" and taking our relationship to the next level. Then I left for a semester abroad in Costa Rica. We decided to leave our relationship open- in other words, we weren't going to break up, but would remain open to other developments if anything should happen. I fooled around a bit while I was out of the country, though nothing major. He sort of had a few dates with another girl. When I got back I decided to break up with him officially as I thought I had changed and had different feelings. But over the next few months I experienced some culture shock and feeling isolated from my friends. He was really there for me through it all and eventually I realized that I really did want to be with him. He was willing to give me another chance, so we got back together and things were so much more real and deeper than they were before. By the middle of my senior year, he proposed.

We waited to get married so that he could finish up school, too. He knew what career path he wanted, whereas I was undecided and could find work with my degree in science/math without further education. So he applied to graduate schools and was accepted at the University of Arizona. Just a month after getting married, we moved to Tucson, AZ. It was really wonderful to start our lives together as a married couple in another state, away from our families. It was like Arizona was ours and we were able to discover each other and life without a bunch of outside influences. We were able to afford a house down there b/c real estate was fairly inexpensive and banks were approving everyone at that point. Turned out to be a great investment! As dh was finishing up his PhD, we started talking about kids. We decided to start trying in his 4th year so that he only had one more year to go when the baby was born. It took us several months to actually conceive (I had a short LP and had an early loss), so dd ended up being born half way through his 5th year. It all worked out except that we had to move with a 5 month old just after he graduated for his new position as a post-doc at UT in Austin, TX. I stayed home with dd while dh worked and got very involved in the AP community there, eventually becoming a certified API leader. Conceiving ds was a huge surprise (as we were not ttc and once again had an unexpected early loss so decided to prevent for several cycles) and especially since we knew we would be moving again to another state where we knew no one. Ds was born in Maryland and while looking for houses in our next and current home (Illinois), we found out I was pregnant with yet another surprise. So once again, we moved while I was pregnant to a place where we know no one. But through it all, we have had each other and while it's made many challenges greater it has also continued to bring us together and take our lives to unexpected places.

Goodness, Becky! *I* can say my story is Jerry Springer-ish, but if someone else did, I'd have to kick some butt! Which I hope you did! lol

It was an online forum, so all I could do was give them graceful articulation of how they shouldn't judge someone else's love, because look at the problems they were having at home.(she'd been venting about her DH asking for divorce and thinking he was unfaithful) I really think her misery was what was making her attack me.

My DH and I met online, on MySpace to be exact, LOL. He was 18 at the time--and I was 25, really depressed, and unhappily married. I chalked him up as "just a kid", but after chatting a couple times I was really taken aback by how different he was from anyone else I'd ever met. We had the same interests and chatted for hours about all sorts of things, both alone and with other mutual friends of ours. We finally met each other at a sort of family-and-friends get-together, but things didn't really take a clear turn toward the non-platonic until we went to these two concerts together. It was nothing short of a spiritual experience--but I also knew I was in for a very difficult ride at that point. The universe didn't disappoint me on that count, as the next year involved multiple major-crisis situations for all involved. Lots of tears and stress as my stronger Self was forged thru the fires of personal growth.

About a year and a half from when we met, we were living together as a family, complete with a new baby (my third, his first). From that point, life has been incredibly, dazzlingly awesome. I have been living in the flow of intuition more or less since I met my now-DH, and it's brought us more amazing things than I ever dared to imagine. :)

Ok, I'll play! The first time I met my husband I was seperated from my ex and while visiting family 200 miles away, my brother kind of pushed his best friend on me. Now, I already knew who he was because he and my brother had been best friends since high school, but other seeing him here and there we didn't know each other. (I left home before my brother met him). Anyway, we ended up going out in a big group of people a few times and then I slept with him. It was only meant to be a one night stand to me, who was leaving town soon anyway to go back home. I had no idea that he thought it was anything more since he was the poster boy for noncommitment. He dated every one. Rumor was that he was sleeping with my brothers girlfriends sister who was married. I asked him about it and he said no. At the time I thought he was lying to me to protect her, so that put me off anyway. Meanwhile, he didn't realize I was married (in a town as small as that one, and him best friends with my brother, I assumed he knew). I went back home and eventually tried one last time with my ex, because though I kind of hated him and it was an emotionally abusive situation, we had a son together and I felt like I owed it to my son to try.

Eventually I left my ex for good, dated some, went to therapy to work on myself and took a break from men all together. By the time I decided to move myself and my son back home, I had worked out a lot of my own issues and though I was open to dating, I really was not looking for anything serious. I had decided that, even though I had always wanted a big family, I had one great kid, family and friend that loved me, a good job, my own money etc. I was never going to be in a relationship again because I needed to but only if/because I wanted to. And I honestly couldn't see myself ever wanting the whole marriage thing again.

While I was in process of moving, I was making the 200 mile trip every weekend gradually bringing my stuff down and putting into storage and that weekend I had brought my cats down to stay at my moms house and one night one got outside and I couldn't find him so I was outside looking it was getting dark. At that time my brother was staying in a room he had built behind my parents house and dh had been there visiting him. He was getting in his truck to leave when he saw me and so he turned on his headlights and helped me find the cat. We talked for a little while in the driveway, I thought nothing of it but for some reason kept thinking about him. The next weekend I was coming down and asked my brother if he would ask dh to come over and help me relocated my dogs to my sisters house. He said no, YOU call him and gave me his number. So I called and never got around to asking about the dogs, but I did ask if he wanted to come over and hang out for awhile. He did and we just watched tv and talked. We talked all night in fact, I was wondering why I never realized how much we had in common. The weekend after that he called me and did something that no one has ever, ever, ever done. When he asked me out, he didn't just ask me. He said, "I was wondering if you and ds would like to go to dinner with me". I think I fell for him right that moment!! So I asked my ds who said yes, then we went and let ds pick where (panchos) and after, dh took us to a miniture golf/video game arcade place and ds had so much fun! Well, we all did!!

After that weekend, I went back home and we talked on the phone for hours every day. The next weekend was the final move and we went out every night that week, like six nights in a row and by the end of that week I knew for a fact that I was in love and that I was going to spend the rest of my life with this man. And it took him until the end of that week to finally kiss me one night out in front of my moms house. My son saw us through a window and wanted to know what we were doing so dh sat down and asked him if it was ok for him to kiss his momma.

We became inseperable, saw each other every day after work, talked on the cellphone after he left my house until he got home then on IM and then he would call me in the morning to make sure I woke up on time. Once we even fell asleep in the front porch swing. This started in July. (the missing cat incident was July 5th in fact) By August I was pregnant with our dd. Now, I knew better. I was using NFP and I knew I was going to ovulate soon and though I had always used a condom when I was single, for some reason, with him, I just felt like we shouldn't and we didn't. From the day I told him I was pregnant, we never spent another night apart. He stayed at my place or I stayed at his. He had always wanted kids and was thrilled, before she was born we were plannig the next two! Before I had met him, he had actually already put a down payment on two acres of land and a house, by october he had got all the water and electrity hooked up and we moved in togeather. We have been togather, and here in this house, since. (That was in 2002). My dd was born in 2003 followed by brothers in 2005 and 2007 and now she has a surprise sister due in 2011!

And in the begining everyone told me not to date him, "he's not the marrying kind", "he won't settle down" etc. But when I asked him about his previous reputation as a ladies man, he said, "I just never met the right woman til now" he always knows just what to say! Everyone was sure we only got together because i got pregnant and given that was only a month after we started dating, no one thought we would last. Here we are nine years and four kids later, as much in love as ever and the most amazing part is...we never really fight. Sure, we disagree occasioanlly and we have had some issues as my first ds grew into a teenager and he and dh started fighting, but in general, he never raises so much as his voice to me, we are respectful of each other and we just don't find much to argue about, ever and for me, after not one but TWO abusive relationships in my past, I cannot tell you what it means to me to have unconditional love and support.And to see what a wonderful father he is to our children.

And wow, I have never really written it all out before, that was kind of theraputic, it was fun! Great idea!

I met DH online on a fanfic group for Star Trek: Voyager that I wrote for. He was a fan of my writing and I was in a relationship, so we only chatted a little here and there. For the most part, I barely noticed him. He made a big confession over the summer that I was the only one who said, "Oh, that makes a LOT of sense!" and dismissed it as part of being on the interwebz--not everyone is who they say they are. He'd had no idea when signing up that he would become part of a community: he just wanted to read fanfic in a group he wasn't old enough to join at the time ;) After his 18th birthday, as I was a mod, I let him back on the group because I'd been the only one who kept much in contact with him and he didn't want to apply and have it be a big thing--he was embarrassed.

Well, we started chatting more and became passing friends. That October, my girlfriend and I had a huge fight. THE fight. I came back, distraught and devastated and he was the only one online--so we talked all night, even though he had class in the morning (he was in college). It changed the entire dynamic of our friendship. Over the next few days, I almost died and some friends came over to try to help me get through it, unaware that I hadn't eaten, drank or slept in 3 days and my heartrate had been steadily over 200bpm and I was literally dying of a broken heart.

They mostly ignored me for each other, as I was weak and not very engaging and in sadness, I went online to chat with him one more time--partly to complain about how I could be in a room, surrounded by friends (okay, there were just 2 of them) and still be utterly alone. They noticed and we all started playing a drinking game (except DH, who is a teetotaler, even ignoring that he was underage--I was 21, FTR, although that would pretty much be the last year I drank much at all). I ended up too drunk to type very quickly and passed out, feeling a thousand times better. I woke up ravenous and ate and started the road to recovery.

On November 1st, he confessed that he had fallen in love with me and I realized I felt very strongly for him, so I agreed to date him (especially since there's little risk in dating someone 1850 miles away). We spent the next couple months trying to scare each other off with our issues and I pushed all the big issues (parenting being first: if he was pro-hitting kids, he was gone, etc.; then politics, religion, etc.) and we survived without a scratch, showing that there was definitely something there. We were both into the same music, mostly the same t.v. (he wasn't big on Buffy after season 3, but I was a huge Buffy fan; we had our sci-fi shows in common, though), played video games, Magic: The Gathering (although it was a few times for me and a big thing for him, lol), etc.

We met that January and flew down to meet a couple other friends from the group. While that ended up a disaster, apparently (our friendship with them did not survive--I believe largely because one of the two had a very strong hatred of men stemming from a monster of a father and couldn't forgive DH's being male... she was also a super control freak and our other friend was very passive and the kind of person who loses herself in relationships). But not for DH and I--the feeling for us was one of 'coming home.' I literally got tunnel vision when he stepped off the plane. All my fears of us not being physically/spiritually compatible were for naught.

I had him for 2 weeks of heaven, then he went back to California. We talked on the phone nonstop (he ran up a $600 phone bill very quickly and our first 'date' had cost over $1000, so he wasn't able to save up much money and since I was being diagnosed with serious disabilities, I couldn't save anything since I could not get a job--had been trying fruitlessly for years). But he was determined not to be separated long and flew me out to CA for Valentine's Day. 2 weeks were over too soon and we knew we didn't want to keep doing the long-distance thing. It was too hard when we KNEW we needed to be together. Not forever, maybe, but I had already changed my long-time belief that marriage was a crock and I'd never do it.

That April, I flew out and we returned here, to MO, by train in May. We lived at my mom's for 6 months, then as we were getting our first place together, he proposed on our first anniversary after I freaked out that maybe he wasn't sure (based on something he'd said a long time before) he wanted to stay with me (since he was the one gung-ho on marriage). So we got engaged and got married (a civil handfasting) two years later, on November 1st.

That's our story! As for kids... it took us 18 months of active trying after marriage to conceive our first.

Hubs and I are high school sweethearts - he's my first and only serious relationship. We've been together for 14 years, so there is a lot of story there, but the gist of our getting together is that he was in a band, and I was the 16-year-old in rainbow tights dancing all by myself in the front. After I finished high school and he was finishing college, we moved to BC together and I went to art school while he paid the bills. We always said that we would never get married - we were devoted to each other, and that's all the "proof" we needed. But then we got an idea, and suddenly getting married was going to be way more fun than not getting married. And so we were married in a small lakeside family-only ceremony, and that summer we went on our "wedding tour" - a six week cross-Canada road trip that brought US to our friends and family, rather than making them fly to us for a big fancy wedding. So we had a series of small, intimate celebrations scattered across the country, and it was a blast. That was 5 years ago. DD was a surprise conception, though we weren't trying especially hard to NOT have a baby either. The only bad timing was that DH was enrolled in school, and so we would be both off work together for an overlapping 6 months after DD was born. We have more debt than we would like because of it, but it worked out. This second one was planned, and after we tried for 9 months to conceive, Tooey came into existence a mere 2 weeks after moving out of our studio apartment into our 3-bedroom co-op townhouse. I guess my body just knew when the time was right!

Crafty, play-at-home mama to spirited 4 yo DD and zany 1 yo DS, living in an ecovillage in beautiful British Columbia.

Wow I'm amazed at how many couples have met online - I did hear the other day that 35% of married couples met each other online - who knew?!

Awesome to hear everyone's stories.

My DH and I met each other working at a group home for youth at risk. I was 26 and he was 30 years old. The problem was that I was seriously dating someone at the time and my DH had had his eye on me for several months frustrated with what - if anything - he could do about the situation. Eventually my Ex and I broke up and I had a contract to go to Istanbul, Turkey to teach English within a month. While my DH and I were work friends, we had never really spent time outside of work together. He offered to go for a drink to give me some support during my break-up. I thought, sure we're really good friends - that sounds nice. Anyway, after half a beer, DH went off about how he actually felt about me and how he thought I was the most amazing woman in the world and then threw down a 20 and exited the building. I sat there dazed and confused.

Fast forward two months - I am in Turkey and my DH is in Nicaragua starting a surf hostel - both of us seemingly focused on executing our adventure-based goals. Well I lasted 2 1/2 months in Turkey and then decided to put a man, my DH, for the first time ever in my life as a priority before my own plans. PLUS, I decided that I really disliked teaching English! So we reconvened in Canada for a couple of months and then headed back to Nicaragua to build up the hostel business. I've never looked back since and have only looked forward with hope, gratitude and love knowing I found the person for me.